Story #39 - Uncle Edgar’s Burial (and How it Went Wrong)

This week, for Halloween, I wrote a silly story about zombies. ;) I hope you enjoy!!

Title: Uncle Edgar's Burial (and How it Went Wrong)
Warnings: zombies

Summary:  Uncle Edgar's burial goes drastically wrong.

Length: ~1,900 words
Notes: Third person point of view, past tense. Genre is closest to parody, probably.

Uncle Edgar’s Burial (and How it Went Wrong)

            It was a gray, rainy, wintery day. The birds weren’t singing and the sun wasn’t shining. It was almost ridiculously in tune with the somber mood of the funeral service. Alice almost felt like the weather was too perfect and matchy-matchy.

            “The world is just mourning Uncle Edgar with us,” Alice’s Aunt Mabel had said when Alice had expressed her unease. “The sun can’t shine without Edgar.”

            Alice didn’t exactly agree. It was stupid, but she’d feel a lot better if the sun would shine for a second or if one bird started singing. It was nice to think of the world mourning Uncle Edgar along with them, but Alice was getting more of a “calm before the storm” feeling from the dismal day. The world wasn’t mourning Uncle Edgar. It was preparing for something.

            “I can’t shake the feeling that something’s wrong,” Alice muttered to her friend Denise as they milled about before the service. To her surprise and relief, Denise nodded.

“I agree,” she said. “It’s too quiet here. The atmosphere is just… creepy. Then again, that could be because we’re in a cemetery.”

“Good point,” Alice conceded. “Still… the sooner this is over, the better.”

Alice felt a bit guilty saying such a thing about her uncle’s funeral. He deserved a decent burial. But she didn’t want to stay one second after that.

Fifteen minutes later, the service started. Alice did her best to sit up straight and pay attention. There weren’t too many people at the burial, but most of the people there had tissues or handkerchiefs that they were sobbing into. Alice was glad of the slight drizzle that had any tears that may or may not be on her face.

To her right, Denise was sniffling. Denise had known Uncle Edgar very well – she had called him “Uncle Edgar” too. It was only natural, because Denise was practically part of Alice’s family, in everything but last name.

They were maybe halfway through the service. Alice could still feel the dread creeping through her and eating up her insides. She couldn’t explain it, but something was definitely wrong with this day. St. John’s Cemetery stunk of wet soil and worse things that Alice didn’t want to think about. And she kept on hearing weird sounds from the graves, like they were sinking into the ground, or maybe like something was trying to come out of them. Which was ridiculous, of course, but it still creeped Alice out.

When it kept to the choice of feeling safe and honoring her poor old Uncle Edgar, Alice would choose feeling safe. Too bad he had wanted to be buried and not cremated. She’d feel better (and warmer) inside next to a fire.

Near the end of the service, it had gotten to the point where all Alice could hear were the weird grave-sucking/climbing noises. She glanced around, trying to gage what the noises were and if anyone else noticed them.

Most of the people were too busy wiping their eyes to hear any noises. But Denise was looking around too, her eyes narrowed. Alice leaned toward her and whispered, “Do you hear that?”

Denise nodded tersely. “Yeah. And if that’s what I think it is, we better get out of here fast.”

Alice felt the dread that had been running through her veins freeze. It was getting hard to breathe. Calm down, she scolded herself. You’re probably overreacting.

“What do you think it is?”

Denise bit her lip. “If I tell you, you’ll think I’m crazy.”

The noises were so loud now that everyone was taking notice. The priest had stopped talking and was looking around. The mourners had also taken notice. There was definitely something going on, and Alice needed to know what it was.

“You can tell me,” Alice said.

Denise took an agonizingly long time to reply. Eventually, she said, “I think what we’re hearing are the classic sounds of a… well, a zombie outbreak.”

Alice was glad she wasn’t eating anything at that moment, because if she had been, she definitely would’ve choked on it. “I’m sorry,” she said, “Did I hear you correctly? A zombie outbreak?”

Alice’s friend sighed. “I knew you wouldn’t believe me.”

Alice opened her mouth to – she didn’t know – placate Denise? Laugh at her? Tell her to lie down? – but the loudest squelching noise yet quickly brought her attention to where the priest was. It sounded like it had come from Uncle Edgar’s new grave, of all places…

The priest slowly moved away. Everyone was staring, frozen, in the direction of Uncle Edgar’s grave. The sound was definitely coming from there. Alice watched, mesmerized, as the earth on top of Uncle Edgar’s grave started moving. It was almost as if someone underneath was pushing it forward…

A zombie outbreak.

No way.

Denise was the one to break the spell. Just as a hand popped through the soil and waved around, a hand that looked exactly like Uncle Edgar’s (and whose else would it be, anyway? They had to be logical here), Denise stood up and faced everyone.

“Everyone RUN!” she screamed. “It’s a zombie invasion!”

Various people screamed. The priest began praying while helping to usher some of the older folk out of the cemetery. People scattered and left one by one. Alice was still in her seat, busy thinking about whether a zombie invasion was better or worse than a zombie outbreak. Denise was still there, getting people to leave, as was Alice’s Aunt Mabel. Maybe she wanted to see her husband come back to life.

It was the sight of a different hand poking through a different grave that finally got Alice to stand up. This hand was almost creepier than Edgar’s, because it was only a skeleton. It must’ve been from someone who had been dead much longer than Edgar. Alice didn’t want to think about the hands of people who were in-between Edgar’s state of decay and Unknown-Skeleton’s.

Alice tore her gaze away from Unknown-Skeleton and saw that Uncle Edgar was almost out of his grave entirely. He’d gotten both arms out, and his head, and most of his torso. Most of him looked like the Uncle Edgar Alice had known, but his hairstyle seemed to have gotten frizzier (from the soil or reanimation, Alice wasn’t sure) and his eyes were devoid of intelligence. Also, he kept on mumbling something that sounded suspiciously like “brains”.

“That can’t be true,” Alice muttered to herself. “Zombies don’t actually eat brains, do they? That’s ridiculous.”

“Honey, I think there’s a lot more ridiculous things to focus on,” Aunt Mabel said. She was to the left of Alice, keeping a careful distance from her zombie husband. She had about as much color in her face as Uncle Edgar did.

Denise came to the rescue. Her black hair had fallen out of its tight bun and she was panting. Alice was mildly surprised to see that she was carrying some sort of gun – sort of like a pistol, but somehow different. It could’ve just been Alice’s stunned mind trying to make sense of things, but it seemed like the gun said “Zombie Destroyer” on it.

“Come on, Aunt Mabel, you’ve got to go,” Denise said. “Uncle Edgar isn’t going to recognize you when he gets out of there – he’s just going to want to eat you. And that’s  not want you want, believe me. So c’mon, let’s go.”

Without further ado, she ushered Aunt Mabel out of the cemetery. Now it was only Alice, Uncle Edgar, and a bunch of nameless zombies in various states of decay.

Alice didn’t know how many people were buried in St. John’s Cemetery. But it was probably at least a hundred. Alice wasn’t sure if all of the corpses were turning into zombies, but she wasn’t exactly keen on sticking around to find out. If only she could get her legs to work.

Uncle Edgar was out of his grave by now. He stood up to his full height, which was intimidating even though for some reason he was standing a bit hunched. He swayed back and forth, not even bothering to clean the dirt off his nice clothes. Well, Uncle Edgar had always been a bit of a slob.

“Brrrrains,” Uncle Edgar mumbled. His eyes rolled around in his head until they focused on Alice, who was directly in front of him.

Now would be a really good time to start running, Alice told herself.

“Brrrrrrrrrrains,” her uncle moaned.

“Brrrrrains,” groaned another zombie nearby.

“Brrrrrrains,” yodeled a third.

Alice looked around slowly. She was surrounded by zombies. And all of them were heading toward her. They shambled along, arms outstretched, reaching towards her. Now, even if she could unfreeze her legs, she’d be doomed.

“My brains aren’t even that good!” Alice squeaked. “I got a D on my last biology test!”

The zombies just continued forward. They clearly didn’t care. Alice felt herself begin to shake. She couldn’t die here! Not like this! Would she turn into a zombie? This was all so unreal! And where was Denise when you needed her?

Just in time, Alice heard a gunshot. She flinched, ducking instinctively to the ground – well, her legs collapsed under her – but it hit the skeleton-zombie on her right. Alice covered her ears as more gunshots rang out. Zombies fell down one by one, and didn’t get up again. Maybe they could only come back to “life” (because what life was being a zombie, really) once.

Eventually, the space around Alice cleared enough so that she could see her savior. It was Denise, looking tough and composed with her zombie-killing pistol-thing and now some sort of clothing that looked like armor. Alice breathed a sigh of relief. Until she saw Denise lift her pistol once again, aiming at Uncle Edgar, the only remaining zombie around Alice.

“No!” Alice yelled, jumping up, finally getting her legs to cooperate. “Don’t shoot him!”

Denise glanced at Alice with sympathetic eyes. “I have to,” she said. “He’s not Uncle Edgar anymore.”

Alice glanced at Uncle Edgar. He was chewing on his own fingers, his eyes rolling about, seeming frightened off by the gunshots. Either that or he couldn’t figure out how to get over the zombie corpses in front of him to get to Alice.

Alice sighed. “I know,” she admitted. “It’s just…”

“I understand,” Denise said. “You might want to close your eyes for this.”

            Denise raised her pistol-thing again. Alice closed her eyes and covered her ears. After she heard the muffled shot, she slowly opened her eyes. Uncle Edgar was lying in front of her, looking similar to how he’d looked before his burial. Except for the weird new hairstyle.   

            Alice sank to the ground as she looked around her. There were maybe seven dead zombies (corpses?) around her. The weird noises had stopped. Everyone was gone. It was just her and Denise and the dead.

Alice couldn’t believe what had just happened. She knew she’d have to come to terms with all of this and think about it for a time later. But right now, Alice had only one question. She looked up at Denise and asked, “Do we have to have a second burial for Uncle Edgar now?”

The End!